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James Eastwood
How can ethics be a militarist practice? This article offers an answer to this question using a study of teaching at Israeli pre-military academies for high-school graduates. It argues that when ethics operates as a practice of subject formation, it is quite possible for it to reinforce the militarist process whereby citizens are turned into soldiers. Based on interviews with teaching staff and participant observation at these academies, this article offers an in-depth analysis of their pedagogy that highlights their increasingly prominent contribution to Israeli militarism. Israeli pre-military academies combine ethics with a programme of military preparation such that military service is presented as an opportunity for individual flourishing and participation in war is imbued with an ideology of ethical soldiering. Given the significance of Israel/Palestine as a theatre of violent conflict, this article argues that this case has wider significance for our understanding of the nature of militarism and of the relationship between ethics and war. It suggests that ethics has become increasingly bound up with militarism, and that there are therefore clear limits to its capacity to constrain the violence of war.
